This course explores the international business environment in which organisations function. You’ll learn about core analysis methods, including PESTLE, SWOT, and Boston Box Matrices, as well as the applications of Porter’s Five Forces. You’ll have the opportunity to participate in discussion forums and access case studies, as well as testing your understanding in quizzes.
This course forms part of a specialization from the University of London designed to help you develop and build the essential business, academic, and cultural skills necessary to succeed in international business, or in further study.
If completed successfully, your certificate from this specialization can also be used as part of the application process for the University of London Global MBA programme, particularly for early career applicants. If you would like more information about the Global MBA, please visit https://mba.london.ac.uk/.
This course is endorsed by CMI

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Mar 26, 2019

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this course is very helpful for me thanks coursera providing me this course

From the lesson

Analysing the External Environment

This week illustrates how PESTLE and SWOT models are applied and evaluated by organisations as they seek to make sense of the impact of the organisational environment on their activities. This week, we will cover:Generic PESTLE (Political, Economic, Socio-cultural, Technological, Legal, and Environmental) analyses; SWOT (Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analyses; PESTLE and SWOT analyses at the local, national, and international levels

Taught By

Dr Alan Parkinson

Deputy Director (Education), School of Management

Transcript

[MUSIC] PEST, PESTLE, STEEPLE, whichever acronym is used to reflect the fact that's being analyzed. As analyses, they are undoubtedly useful to organizations. The core analysis makes sense. A further analysis is also useful. This involves analyzing the factors at local, national, and global levels, turning the acronym PEST into LoNGPEST. The local level is the area, the city or region, in which an organization operates. The national level is the home country in which the organization is based, often where its headquarters are based. The global level refers to anything outside of the local and national spheres. It's important to understand the differences between the terms international and global. An organization operating in and being influenced by the global level of its external environment will often be trading in another country. Thus, the organization will be impacted by its own domestic laws and culture, but also by those of the countries it's trading in. International as a term tends to reflect issues that occur between nations. Global as a term tends to cover many of the issues which through globalization tend to affect all parts of the world in similar and simultaneous ways. Let's take a closer look at a framework for LoNGPEST analysis through a template. An appropriate template should capture at a minimum political, economic, sociocultural, and technological influences, and categorize them into local, national, and global levels. The extension to PESTLE, involving legal matters and environmental issues, makes sense. So let's identify some typical influences. We can look at some typical political influences, perhaps deregulation policies, taxation policies, although they would connect with economic influences as well. Health and safety regulations, they could result from government intervention. Public expenditure limits, particularly if you're dealing with health organizations or local authorities, state governments. And environmental legislation and green policies inspired by government, motivated by government. But again, they would have a crossover link with the environmental matters. Stability of government itself, that's really important. Typical economic influences might include interest rates, the rate of inflation. Are we in a period of boom or a period of recession? And levels of disposable incomes. Do people have more money in their pocket to spend, or less money in their pocket to spend? And materials and labor costs. And finally, perhaps unemployment levels. High unemployment levels will clearly have an influence, as will low unemployment levels. Typical socio-cultural influences might include changes in demographics, a younger population, an aging population, or perhaps both. Changing lifestyles, more leisure time. And the levels of education, lots of degree-educated people or not. And changing consumer preferences. What about attitudes to work-life balances? Some typical technological influences could include, well, progress in scientific discoveries. We wouldn't have got anywhere if we hadn't had those. Improvements in telecommunications. The impact of technology on, first of all, production, then on supply chains, and on delivery to consumers. Typical legal influences could include, obviously, corporation law, company law, employment law. Codes of conducts, which are often voluntary, but are in a sense quasi legal. Consumers' appetite for litigation. Some countries, consumers just want to take you to court if they possibly can. And then in some countries where you have a federal and a state relationship, federal versus state conflicts. And we mentioned it before, taxation laws, which are under economics but are also a consequence of legal influences. Typical environmental influences could include, well, climate change. These days, everybody seems to be talking about climate change, whether they believe in it or not. They're talking about it, and that clearly has a influence on companies' policies and actions. What about issues connected to water supplies, and then to energy supplies? And overall, the view on ethics, ethical standards within corporations. [MUSIC]

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